Sentiments Of Madness
by Meat Puppet
Summary: The story of a simple Irken soldier's unsettling journey into madness...


"Sanity is such a wonderful thing, it should be cherished and respected, for you never know when it may be violently torn from you, never to return. It's amusing to see just how tightly one will cling to their sanity once they've been given a glimpse of the other side. Perhaps it's true that you never know what you have until it's gone."

The Madness Bringer

Syll took her perfect existence for granted, being a simple Irken soldier who had recently passed the all important test to become one of the proud Irken elite. She now enjoys an assortment of newfound social privileges. She's living the good life. Operation Impending Doom II had been incredibly successful as of late, thus meaning Syll had a chance to spend time with her new Invader friends, as well as the Tallest themselves. It was always a blast to celebrate planetary conquest victories with the tallest.

The planetary conversion team was busy performing the final organic sweep on the most recently conquered planet, the native inhabitants ran and screamed in terror as their cities crumbled before them at the hands of constant orbital cannon fire. The Tallest would burst into laughter whenever the occasional native was unfortunate enough to be struck by a stray shot.

Syll was sitting alone at a table in the large common area on the Massive, watching the planetary conversion team hammer the landscape into absolute oblivion.

Syll was quite the pretty little thing. Her eyes were a pleasant lavender color, framed by large feminine lashes. Her curled antennae were long, reaching to about her mid-back. It wasn't hard to see how she made new friends so quickly.

She took a sip of her soda and set it on the table, smiling at the Tallest as they pondered what they should turn the planet into. It was quite obvious they were starting to run out of ideas at this point. They were talking about a CD storage planet.

The Invaders were scattered about the room among other elites, talking to each other about the highlights of their missions as they drank soda and ate unfathomable amounts of Irken Junk food. Syll had probably sat down with just about every Invader there to hear their story. It was every Irken's dream to become an Invader and Syll was no different. She loved to hear about their adventures, just picturing herself in their place. She very much wished something equally exiting would happen to her. It's a pity she didn't specify.

About an hour passed and the volleys of cannon fire had slowed to a near stop, they were now just cleaning up anything they may have missed. The Tallest had decided on a Spa planet, it turns out they didn't have one of those yet. Purple took credit for it, saying it was his idea.

A single Irken stood up and wandered off.

Syll started to feel rather tired, even though she had not been doing anything at all strenuous. She stared down at her table and shook her head, trying to shrug off the sudden wave of sleepiness that had come over her. Her mind felt clouded...she was unable to discern any actual meaning from the conversation going on around her. Soon all she could make out were the blurry red and purple figures of the Tallest standing next to the massive vid-screen that was currently displaying the slow cleanup process conducted by the Planetary conversion team.

A slender, red-eyed female Invader stood up from her seat and placed a gloved hand on Syll's shoulder. "You feeling alright? You look tired."

Syll jumped slightly. "Oh, it's just you El. Yeah, I'm fine. I just feel really tired for some reason...I'm sure it'll pass."

El nodded. "Well, let us hope you're right. Maybe we'll see each other later, I need to head off. I've got things to do.."

Syll smiled slightly. "Okay, I suppose I'll see you whenever."

El smiled and walked off.

Syll stared down at her table and began to nod off, catching herself before she hit her head on the table. She raised her head and suddenly felt very awake, but something was very wrong. The common area was completely empty. Syll blinked and slowly gazed about the room. There wasn't a single Irken in sight. The area was dead quiet, save for the sound of static coming from the vid-screen. She was very confused. She stood up and slowly moved away from the table, walking towards the vid-screen, which was roughly in the middle of the room. What happened? She was sure she didn't fall asleep. She called out, hoping to catch the attention of a service drone or something. "Hello? Anyone here?" Nothing but silence. She began to feel rather frightened. The common area was never empty, there was _always_ someone there.

Syll moved up to the console for the vid-screen and turned it off. The sound of static was starting to get rather annoying. One of her antennae perked as she heard a strange scraping sound coming from somewhere behind her. She quickly spun around, but saw nothing, only empty tables and chairs. A door on the other side of the room slid open and footsteps could be heard moving out. She looked to where the noise came from, managing to catch a glimpse of something as it vanished into the darkness of the corridor beyond the door. Syll cautiously approached the door, catching it just before it slid shut. She pushed the door back open and peeked out into the dimly lit corridor. She blinked. It looked as if the ship had suddenly undergone several centuries of decay. The walls were rusted over and a few dim lights flickered while others simply didn't work. The air was stale and musty. It was like uncovering a lost tomb.

Syll quietly slipped into the corridor and a horrible scent suddenly overwhelmed her senses. Her eyes watered and she began to gag...It was sickening. It smelled of rot and decay. She couldn't locate the source of the smell, but thought it was for the best. She took a moment to study her surroundings, looking down both ends of the corridor. One end of the corridor was poorly lit by flickering, dying lights, while the other was entirely pitch black. She would take her chances with the poor lighting...who knows what may be lurking in the dark.

Several moments passed and Syll finally gathered the courage to proceed. She took a deep breath and began to cautiously walk down the corridor. It was so quiet. The only thing she could hear was her quickened breathing and her heart pounding within her chest. An antennae perked as she heard a slight rustling noise behind her. She quickened her pace, too afraid to look and see what it might be. She tried desperately to convince herself there was nothing to be afraid of. She heard the strange rustling noise again and tried to pretend she didn't hear it. Upon hearing it a third time she couldn't help but glance over her shoulder. She then promptly slipped and fell onto the floor, landing in a puddle. She growled and lifted her hand to wipe the liquid from her face. Something about her hand caught her attention. It was covered in red. It wasn't just any liquid, it was blood. Her eyes widened and she crawled out of the puddle with a quickness only achieved through immense fear, wildly wiping at her clothing in a futile attempt to wipe her uniform clean, of course it was thoroughly stained at this point. After she calmed herself down a bit, she folded her legs under her and took a moment to catch her breath as well as reflect on everything she had experienced. Nothing made sense. This couldn't be the Massive. Everything was all wrong. Where was she?

Something crashed to the floor with a sickening thud behind her...the empty corridor was filled with the clicking and scraping of metal on metal. Syll froze. The horrible sounds coming from behind her were quickly drowned out by the pounding of her heart. She slowly turned her head to glance over her shoulder. She knew she shouldn't have, but she did anyway. All she saw was darkness. The light that had guided her before was gone. The only light that remained came from a pair of glowing red eyes...

Syll couldn't move. She couldn't even will herself to open her mouth to scream. The glowing red lights rose from the floor as whatever it was stood up. It was huge. The eyes stared down at her as a horrible throaty gurgling noise broke the silence. That was it. She leapt to her feet and took off down the corridor as the more primitive parts of her brain took action. She didn't know what that thing was, but she wasn't going to stick around to find out. Those eyes did remind her of something though...what was it? The image of a SIR unit flashed in her mind...that was it. They were like a SIR unit's eye cams, but it was quite obvious that thing wasn't a SIR unit. As she sprinted down the corridor, she noticed it seemed to get darker and more decrepit the further she went. Pipes and wires hung from missing panels on the walls and various bits of metal debris littered the floor, the ship began to look ancient. She looked behind her to see if the thing had given chase and realized the darkness was actually following her. As she ran the lights flickered and died, one after another as she ran past. The glowing red lights were not far behind her...the way they moved simply made her head hurt...they seemed to do an instantaneous jump from place to place. There was no in between, no evidence of movement of any kind. They were just there one moment, then somewhere else the next...Syll watched the reality bending movement of the eyes until she stepped in something wet. She blinked and turned her gaze back ahead of her. She wretched, almost losing the contents of her stomach right there...

The corridor was completely splattered with blood, and more horribly, unidentifiable chunks of bloody flesh. Syll stopped to dry heave, managing to stifle her urge to throw up. Her antennae perked suddenly as she heard a rhythmic metallic clanking coming from behind her. She didn't have to turn around to know it was that _thing_ barreling down on her. She looked down the blood splattered corridor...she really didn't want to go through that. Four mechanical spider legs extended from the three ports on her PAK, two of the legs coming out of the larger uppermost port. The legs lifted her off the ground and she started down the corridor again now that she didn't have to worry about stepping in one of the unsightly puddles ahead of her. She glanced behind her to see just how close the thing was, but it was just...gone...no red glow and no noise other than the metallic clicking of the spider legs that carried her further into the unknown. She didn't like this at all, but didn't question it as her fears just might be confirmed, just to smite her.

Syll continued onward, taking it slower now that she didn't have to worry about that thing anymore. Just how long was this damned corridor? She felt like she had been traveling for hours without seeing a single bend or fork...

It was almost as if someone knew exactly what Syll was thinking as the corridor took a sudden sharp turn. She could see light around the corner. Syll smiled and the mechanical spider legs retracted back into her PAK. She dropped to her feet and rounded the corner, then just stopped dead in her tracks. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. An entire section of the wall seemed to have just been ripped out and instead of being violently sucked out into space, she was staring into a dark alien landscape.

Dark foreboding storm clouds filled the sky above the barren rocky landscape. Seemingly out in the middle of it all was a crashed Irken spittle runner. The cockpit was lit up and Syll could just barely make out the figure of an Irken sitting in the cockpit. Every so often she could see the clouds suddenly light up, followed by the loud crack of thunder. This whole thing made Syll's mind reel. Sure the Massive was near a planet before all of this happened, but it looked _nothing_ like this. There was an interesting scraping noise behind her, much like the one she had heard on multiple occasions during all this...

Syll spun around. There on the wall, scrawled out in blood were the words: _Find me. Those that came before will show you the way. _She began to contemplate the meaning of these words, but she didn't get very far before a bloodstained metal claw shot from the darkness and wrapped itself about her neck. She was lifted off her feet and slammed up against the wall. Soon she found herself staring into those glowing red eyes that had been following her for so long. They were like searchlights that had spotted an escaped convict. Her hands moved to her neck and she tried to pry the claw from around her neck, but whatever it was, it was far stronger than she was. Her mind was suddenly filled with all sorts of bizarre sounds. Screams, groans, otherworldly squeals and shrieks. She felt like she was losing her mind. Her vision blurred and the room seemed to spin, then everything went dark...


End file.
